


a gunner good

by cherrytart



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Accidental Armitage Acquisition, Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Being Sad By The Sea, Isolation, Local Man Unaware His Boyfriend is a Seamonster, Local Seamonster Just Generally Unaware, M/M, Selkies, Sexual Content, Unresolved Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29291325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrytart/pseuds/cherrytart
Summary: Tommy’s a shining thing in the night, dark curls spilling over his face. He’s close enough Sol can smell the tavern on him, and he’s smiling, little silver grin.“Pretty lad like you shouldn’t be wandering about at night. All sorts knocking about.” It’s not at all what Sol means to say.Solomon Tozer moved to the coast to forget. It's going well so far.
Relationships: Past Cornelius Hickey/Solomon Tozer, Thomas Armitage/Solomon Tozer
Comments: 19
Kudos: 30
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt "lost and found" for monday of the terror rarepair week.
> 
> thank you to [oceanofchaos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceanofchaos) and [fosfomifira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fosfomifira/) for listening to me yell about this and for helping prod me and these boys in the right direction. 
> 
> title from [here](http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/selkiefolk/sulesk.htm).

A man can get used to many things. Sol Tozer knows this, better than most – his many years as a marine taught him well, he supposes. Twelve years out now, since he took a musket ball to the shoulder, the better part of them on this lonely stretch of coast at the far east side of England. He’s used to the black line of the rocks and the cold, slate coloured water as far as you see in either direction. Used to the braying of the gulls and the barking of the seals up high on the rocks, their liquid black eyes following you.

They’re wary of people, but if you’re quiet they let you get close. He’d seen one with eyes of blue, once, sunning itself on the far side of the beach. It’d looked right at him, Sol could swear to it – although he’d been on the ale at the time, so who knows?

 _It’s not much of a place_ , Cornelius had told him. Still, he’d wanted to see for himself, after all of it. Liked it well enough to stay. The beach is mostly shale and what sand there is sticks into the pebble-dashed outer walls of the cottage he’d bought for a pittance, from a man with a shabby frock-coat and his eyes on some other horizon.

Suits Sol just fine, and he’s fixed it up nice, laid the floor with fresh boards and patched the leaking roof. The villagers have grown used to him, too, for he’s a dab hand with a hammer and saw, mends their boats and chairs and doorsteps, and only charges what’s fair to take.

Still, of all the things he’s used to, he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the reckless way the lads up here go on. They’re fishermen born and bred, most of them, with a healthy respect for the sea and its dangers, but they’ll scramble all over the rocks and cliffs as if there’s no tomorrow. Sol, raised on the unforgiving banks of the Mersey, and no danger to a scrape in his own youth, still doesn’t understand the appeal.

“It’s _fun_ ,” Tommy tells him, but Tommy’s loopy, everyone knows that. Lean streak of a lad with his cap of coal-coloured curls, his thin, half homely face with its glancing grins.

Sol first saw him on the shoreline, the morning after a storm. Bessie, the soppy thing, adores him and will follow him like she’s looking for treats, though Tommy never has anything to give her. Never dresses for the weather either, wandering about barefoot in breeches that look like they’ve seen better days last decade and a thin shirt stained with salt.

“Til you slip,” Sol tells him, has told him, more than a few times. Tommy only smiles that sharp smile and climbs higher, taunting the Hartnell lads to match him as though they’re not bad enough already.

Where Tommy came from he’s no idea, nor, he thinks, does anyone else. _Came to fish_ , he’ll say if anyone asks him, like it ought to be obvious. He hangs about the docks and Sol’s workshop, doesn’t bother him any, just watches – helps fetch and carry if Sol looks like needing it. Sol ought to know better, but Tommy’s a nice little thing, and there’s no harm in him. He goes out with the lads on their boats sometimes, Sol knows, and hasn’t anything, it seems, but the clothes on his back. Sol doesn’t even know his whole name.

Still, Sol thinks – it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on him. Don’t seem as though he’s got anyone else to do it.

~

He works ‘til its dark, then shoves the door to the shed back and leans his head back against the rough wood. It’s a hunter moon, heavy bellied up over the waves. Hungry thing, this sea, like the river of his childhood, and he knows well to treat it with just as much care.

“Are you going to swim, Sol?” He jumps at that soft, up-and-down voice.

Tommy’s a shining thing in the night, dark curls spilling over his face. He’s close enough Sol can smell the tavern on him, and he’s smiling, little silver grin.

“Pretty lad like you shouldn’t be wandering about at night. All sorts knocking about.” It’s not at all what Sol means to say.

Doesn’t seem to bother the lad none. “All sorts,” Tommy repeats. “Are you all sorts, then?”

Sol snorts – lad doesn’t know what he’s playing with, and he'll be sure to tell him so, send him off to wherever it is he camps out, which is none of Sol's business. Definitely none of his business to reach and touch the skin of his neck, a little wet with sweat or spilt beer. He does it anyhow, and Tommy smiles still.

“You watch me,” Tommy says, a slow lilt in his voice. He doesn’t sound like anyone Sol’s ever heard up this way, but they’re at the ends of the earth, or thereabouts. Plenty come looking to get away. “Do you think about me? I think about you.”

Oh, it’s definitely not a good idea.

“You drunk, lad?” he asks, propping his shoulder against the wall – not so that Tommy couldn’t leave if he wanted. Just so as he understands how it’ll go if he doesn’t.

Those blue eyes are shiny dark. Tommy shakes his head. Touches his pointed tongue to his full lower lip. “Doesn't taste nice,” he says, in that same perplexed tone as he'd used almost a year since, when Sol had first asked him his name.

“No?” Sol says, very gently. Takes hold of his chin, brings him in close and seals their mouths together. The lad was telling the truth, there’s no liquor on his breath – just a briny, salt heavy taste. He makes a high pitched sound, lets Sol jostle him up against the wall. “You gonna be good for me, then? Let me have a taste?”

Tommy leans in, nips his lip, and Sol knows he should stop it, send the lad home, but where that is he doesn’t know – and its been so long, so long since he’s had this, and Tommy’s curling into his arms, pressing up against him like he wants it, needs it, and what can Sol do but give it to him, then?

“Don’t stop,” Tommy murmurs, and when Sol lifts him up he sighs, a low, tinny sound, like the waves against the seawall. Sol leans in to kiss him again – tastes the ocean – and does just as he’s asked.

~

The pub in the village tosses them all out at five minutes to closing, and Sol ambles home at a slow pace, his blood pleasantly warm from drink. He’s to cross the beach to get home, flung out as it is on the headland, looking down onto the sweep of rocks leading out to sea.

There’s a gap between two rocks where Harry Peglar’s _Jonquil_ usually sits, but he must be away overnight, and Sol stops for a second, whistling for the dog, before his eye goes to the spit of sand to his left.

The shells are lined up again, end to end between the rocks.

Bessie noses at them for a moment before turning back towards the water – she’s a spry old thing, a little slow these days, a touch of grey in her dark coat, but she jumps at the waves like a pup, still.

Sol takes a second to bend and look down at the pattern in the moonlight, close on like his mother reading tea-leaves for the neighbours while Da was out. He doesn’t believe in all that, anymore, but he can’t help but think of it. No divination to be found here, though, only the slick face of the rocks and the hungry thresh of the sea against the sand.

A sharp wuff from Bessie lifts his head, and he’s met with the sight of the collie dropping low to the ground as if she’s stalking, just how she used to try to round up the fishermens kids or the seal pups on the beach, whining pitifully whenever one strayed from her little makeshift flock.

“S’alright, lass,” Sol tells her, but Bessie ignores him. _She’s soft as butter_ , the man he’d bought the cottage from had warned him, _no good as a guard dog_.

Sol hadn’t wanted that – hadn’t thought to keep a dog at all, truth told, but he’s grown used to Bessie and all, and she to him. He follows her up to the overhang, where the sea doesn’t quite reach, and it’s then he sees what’s got her in a tizz.

At first he takes it for an animal, but he quickly realises no, it’s a fur, a great silky thing the colour of pewter, spread out beneath one of the rocks like an abandoned picnic blanket.

It’s soft as Tommy’s hair beneath Sol’s fingers, when he leans down to touch it. He scoffs at himself for that thought. Surely it won’t do him any good – Tommy’s not been by for days. Sol might’ve known, he’s a shy thing for all his going on, and Sol wasn't exactly gentle with him. Can’t bring himself to regret it, even now. Besides, he’s no true claim on the lad, in spite of what they’ve done in the quiet of Sol’s workshop, Tommy’s sweet mouth and the tight clutch of him around Sol’s prick.

_Christ._

A patter of rain comes down, blown in off the sea. Sol looks consideringly at the fur. Might be it's someone else's, but he can't think whose, and it seems a damn shame to leave it. It’s heavy, but it gathers easily, so he shakes out the sand and hitches it over his shoulder. It’s dry in spite of the stinging wind and sea-spray, and at home he hangs it across the back of the old chair by the fire. It’s a lovely thing, right enough. Bessie gives it a sniff, rubs her muzzle along the edge.

“Alright, is it?” Sol asks, leaning up to look out the single window. Times you can see seals bobbing in the bay, their round heads just visible above the water, but the sea’s rough tonight, and all he can sight are the waves.

Bessie gives the fur another sniff, seems satisfied. She comes over and licks his hand, and accepts a stroke along her head. Must be meant for them, then – he’s never known Bess to steer him wrong. He shuts the window over, and goes to bank the fire down for the night.

~

Typical, bloody typical, that the next time he sees Tommy, the lad’s acting the fool up on the rocks. There’s nobody else in sight, either, just Tommy with his damn bare feet and tangled hair, clambering about like he’s lost something.

“Fucking get down from there!” Sol calls, watching Tommy with a queasy feeling in his stomach as the boy hitches himself over a particularly sharp patch, and almost seems to fall. It’s late, and there’s a storm rolling in, Sol can tell.

“Come and fetch me, if you want!” Tommy calls, the wind whipping his voice back, and Sol fancies telling him that if he wants Sol to fuck him again he can just bloody _ask_.

There’s spray hitting the rocks full force, and Sol can see how easy it would be for Tommy to slip even if the lad can’t. He scrambles up the nearest face, stomach lurching at how close to the tide coming in they are.

“Hey,” he calls, when Tommy stops, his curls wild in the wind. “Hey, just -” It’s too late and Sol knows it. Tommy glances back at the sound of his voice, loses his footing and topples.

Sol curses – nothing else for it – he pulls off his jacket, Bessie yipping frantically down on the beach, and dives in after him.

Bugger if it isn’t cold. Tommy surfaces at the same time as Sol hits the water, and he grabs blindly for the lad, the two of them all threshing limbs and gasping. Sol’s going to bloody _murder_ him, once they’re safely back on the beach.

“Stay still, aye?” Sol shouts through a mouthful of salt water. “I’ve got you.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Tommy protests, only for his head to go under the water and Sol to have to haul him up again.

“Aye, well,” Sol starts, but can’t think what he was going to follow it with. His chest is pounding, and a frantic splashing from somewhere off to the left tells him Bessie’s in the water as well, the stupid animal, she hasn’t swum in months, she’ll tire…

“Sol,” Tommy murmurs, his fingers curling into Sol’s shirt. “Did you-”

“Hush your mouth. C’mon,” Sol gets his arm around Tommy properly, starts to tug him shoreward.

Tommy tries to shake him off a couple of times, and right enough he could probably swim it on his own, but Sol’s taking no chances.

He drags Tommy into the shallows, doesn’t let him go. “Don’t even try it,” Sol tells him, when Tommy tries to shake him off, and once Bessie’s back on dry land, he takes the both of them up to the cottage.

Tommy’s good and quiet when Sol shoves him down by the fireside, but he’s shivering something awful. He catches sight of the fur thrown over the chair, and stares at it, almost wonderingly. Reaches out to touch it, and then draws back, as though he’s afraid to get it damp. He shouldn’t, its hardy enough.

“Strip,” Sol tells him. He’s unsure if he’s ever been so bloody angry.

Tommy blinks at him, wet lashed. “Blimey,” he says softly.

“Not like that, you little idiot,” Sol snaps, wrangling Bessie into standing still so he can dry her off with the proffer of a marrowbone. “You’ll catch pneumonia in them wet things.”

The lad mutters _catch_ _pneumonia_ in a terrible attempt at Sol’s accent (all these years off the Mersey, stationed in Portsmouth and London and all sorts overseas, and now here at the back of beyond, and he still can’t shake it). Sol clips him over the head, making him yelp, a deep, bark-like sound. Strange thing, he is.

Once he’s stripped down (Sol averts his eyes, it seems the decent thing, if a bit past the point), Sol grabs for the fur from off the chair and tucks it round him, growls at him to stay put while he boils the kettle. Tommy gathers it about himself like a mantle, his white hands gripping into it, and when he looks at Sol, his eyes are shining. It’s a toss up, he reckons, whether he ought to kiss the lad or throttle him.

“What about you?” Tommy says, blinking those blue eyes up at him from inside the fur.

“I’m grand,” Sol says, though he’s wringing wet and a bit chilled. He pulls his own shirt off and tosses a blanket over his shoulders, reckons that’ll do for now. “Tip your head back.”

Tommy gnaws at his lip, but does as he’s told, lets Sol towel the water from his pretty curls much more sweetly than Bessie has ever taken a rubbing down. “You don’t have to,” he murmurs.

“Quiet,” Sol tells him, only for Tommy to twist round and look at him. Sol can see the pale skin of his throat where the pelt has slipped down, the dark hair on his chest, the tight peak of one brownish nipple. He wants to kneel down and put his mouth to the lad’s skin, anywhere, everywhere, no matter the boy just nearly drowned himself, and Sol into the bargain.

“You don’t,” Tommy protests. “I- I know you don’t like me.” His eyes drop to his lap.

“That’s not -”

“I mean you – you think I’m a nuisance.”

“I like you fine,” Sol grabs his chin to make him look up, see he means it. Those eyes are like drowning, though, you look at them too long – and Sol does, _ha_ _s_ , too much in fact. “Like you plenty.”

“Sol,” Tommy says softly.

“Hush, now,” Sol murmurs, gathering Tommy, pelt and all, up against him. He’s wet through, and the lad really will catch pneumonia if he’s not careful, but he can’t not do it. There’s a need in him, to have Tommy close. “You’re alright." 

“Take me to bed,” Tommy murmurs, one cold hand coming to rest on Sol’s cheek. “Please.”

“To _sleep_ ,” Sol tells him, though that’ll be torture on its own.

Tommy nods. “M’sorry,” he says, as Sol pulls back the curtain that quarters off the bed from the rest of the room, scrubs the water from his own hair with a fresh cloth, and drops his breeches. Tommy’s sitting on the bed now, one leg hanging down, the rest of him bundled into the fur still. He opens it as Sol approaches, and it covers both of them just fine. “I shouldn’t…” he tries again, but Sol hushes him.

“You’re alright,” he tells him again, slotting in next to him, Tommy’s feet tangling round his ankles. Lad’s like an icicle, but Sol’s got it in hand. “Lie still, now, pet. I’ll keep you warm.”

~

He doesn’t ask Tommy to stay. It’d be a liberty, and after the night he’d spent sleeping in Sol's arms, curled in like a badger cub, close enough that his round little arse was pressed flush to Sol’s thighs, he knows he’s no right to any of those from Tommy.

He’s had the lad in his house, in his bed, and it would’ve been easy, so easy, to turn Tommy over, smooth back his hair and kiss him just where his frown would sit. To shift so he was on top of him, bracket him with his arms and slide his thigh between Tommy’s. That’d warm him right through, sure enough.

He hadn’t, though. Tommy trusts him, for whatever damn reason, and Sol is determined to be worthy of that. Not even if Tommy’s good for it, as Sol knows he would be, he has been, hasn’t he, letting Sol in, so eager to be had he’d pressed back even in his sleep…

So no, he doesn’t ask Tommy to stay. But what he doesn’t do either, what he _should_ , when morning comes, gale still blowing outside, is tell him to _go_.

Instead, he lets Tommy roll out of bed and stoke up the fire, set the pan and the oil heating, as though he's done it a thousand times before, and he looks at the neat line of Tommy’s arse, his strong thighs, and holds out his hand so that Tommy comes back to him. “Mad little thing, you are,” Sol says, pinching Tommy’s side where he’s bruised from the rocks. Tommy makes a hurt sound, and Sol strokes him to apologise. “Gonna have to teach you a lesson.”

Tommy throws his leg over Sol, comes up to straddle his stomach, and there, that’s not half bad at all. “Teach me,” he murmurs, leaning down to rub his face over Sol’s chest. He’s got neat little ears, flat and pinned back – Sol’s never noticed that before. “If you like.”

The pan turns to smoking, but neither of them notice.

Tommy will go when he’s ready, Sol’s certain. You can’t hold the lad, everyone knows that, he’s half wild and nothing but trouble. In the meantime, its no real trouble having him about. He’s a bloody decent cook, and it ain’t half nice, coming home to the fire lit and Tommy’s gentle smiles.

Sol doesn’t quite dare to kiss him, to begin with. Even if Tommy let him before, thinking it’d only be the once, that don’t mean he’d want it again. Some blokes are funny about that, aren’t they?

Cornelius certainly had been. Later, when he’d deigned to kiss Sol at all, it had felt as though he was totting it up for later, just as he marked things down in his little leather notebook – who owed what, and when the time would come to collect. Sol hadn’t minded, at the time. After all, they’d been in it together, hadn’t they? _You and me, we’ll see the world, Solomon._ Could be Cornelius made it after all, but just as like he’s at the bottom of a canal somewhere, knowing him.

It’s Tommy who kisses Sol, though, one bright morning on the kitchen floor. Sol’s had him on his hands and knees, tugging his mop of hair to pull him back, just how he likes, making him arch up into Sol’s grip, the angle letting him drive deep inside his boy – because that’s what Tommy is, whether Sol says it aloud or not, _his_.

When it’s done with Tommy lets Sol tuck an arm round him where they lay on the kitchen floor, folded in against each other, his thin chest rising and falling in little heaving breaths. “Look at you,” Sol tells him, because he can’t help it, the lad was made to be admired. He runs a hand down Tommy’s flank, traces the web of his ribs, where there’s a knotted scar raised from the skin. “Needed that, didn’t you?”

Tommy _mmm_ s, presses his forehead into Sol’s arm. He runs so much cooler than Sol does, and it's no hardship for Sol to gather him close to make up for it. Not half bad, Sol reckons, just being here like this, Tommy’s sharp angles softened, all fucked out and lovely.

When Tommy leans up and kisses him, Sol opens his mouth to it, holds the lad firmly. Tommy tastes like nothing he’s ever known before – like a storm on the sea.

And alright, yes, Tommy’s an odd little thing on occasion. Plenty’s the time Sol will wake in the early hours to find the bed empty, and look out the half open door to see Tommy sitting down by the shoreline, looking out to sea. But all he needs to do is gather up that soft fur pelt that keeps them so warm at night, and go down to join him.

“Bring it with you,” Sol tells him, watching Tommy fold the fur back onto the foot of the bed once they’re inside again. “S’yours as well.” The lad always shakes his head, but Sol keeps saying it, if only because it makes him smile as well. Silly to let him get cold.

Tommy will make one of his soft little noses, those mornings when Sol settles behind him, and he'll let Sol tuck them both up inside the fur. He looks lovely in the half light, his dark hair and pale skin, and Sol will kiss his cheeks and the crown of his head, breathe in the salt-heavy smell of him. There’s no one about to see them, so why shouldn’t he?

If he liked, he could question Tommy – _where are your people_ , he could say, _why did you leave them? Does anyone know where you are?_

It seems strange to him, that Tommy should not be loved, missed.

Could be his family are gone, and Sol understands that well enough, and why Tommy wouldn’t want to speak of it. Fuck knows he’s his own regrets.

Tommy likes to trace the ink arcing over Sol’s chest – _per marre, per terram_ in thick black lettering, done by a mate of Bill’s one night in Woolwich, when they were steaming drunk. He’ll ask sometimes, about Sol’s time as a marine, but he seems to have a sixth sense for when to leave a thing alone, and he doesn’t push if Sol won’t, or can’t, answer. Least Sol can do is pay him the same kindness.

~

“It’s good of you,” Peglar tells him one afternoon when they’re patching a thin spot in _Jonquil’s_ hull, “keeping an eye.”

Sol can sense the _but_ coming a mile off, and its fucking rich coming from Peglar, because he knows for a fact old John Bridgens doesn’t just rent Henry a room over his bookshop. None of Sol’s business, is it? Just as its none of anyone’s about him and Tommy.

“Say what you’re going to say, Harry,” Sol tells him, when Peglar, no doubt catching Sol’s thoughts from the look on his face, stops.

“Just be careful, alright? This is a good place for secrets, but things have a way of finding themselves out, if you’re not.”

Sol takes it as its meant, which is kindly, but what’s he supposed to do – let Tommy go back to sleeping by the docks and under hedges? It shames him that he ever did at all.

“He’s only young, is the thing.” Peglar says, and that’s rich and all, ain’t it?

“I know,” Sol tells him. “But like you said, I keep an eye on him.”

It sticks at him, though, the thought. When he’s in town, he catches John Bridgens’ eye at the pub doorway, and has to shove down a spark of guilt, some fellow feeling with the other man, because Tommy _is_ young, but Sol wants him still.

“You know you don’t have to, right?” Sol tells Tommy, one night when the lad ducks under the sheets and nuzzles into the crease between Sol’s hip and thigh, going to get his mouth around Sol’s cock, and it aches like anything to have to stop him, but he will. He pulls the covers back and makes Tommy look at him. “You’ve a right to your own bed, if you want. Wouldn’t take more than a day or two to fi-”

Tommy kisses him quiet, settling his weight onto Sol with a soft huff, and oh, the lad knows _exactly_ what he’s doing, and that Sol is helpless to refuse him. That he never would. His teeth, sharp little things, scrape over Sol’s lips, and his tongue follows.

“Sooner sleep at your feet than away from you,” Tommy whispers against his mouth, “You’re so good to me, Sol, I... _o-oh_ …” His words peter off, because Sol’s sat up to grip his hips, cup his lovely arse in one hand.

“That so?” Sol asks, gently pulling those plump buttocks apart, sliding his grip down to feel out that tight, greedy hole, wishing he had some grease to hand.

“Take it back,” Tommy murmurs, rocking his hips in little shifting motions. “You’re a bad man. Wicked. I should...oh, _yes like that_ , please, its – _Solomon_...”

“You’re mine, then, Tommy? That how it is?” Sol asks, just to see Tommy’s cheeks go pink with a rush of blood. “All mine?”

“You know I am, you – _Sol_ -” Tommy’s words cut off in that helpless whine that means he’s close, and it never fails to send a thrill through Sol, how easy the lad takes it, how eager he always is for more.

It’s a heady thing, to want so much – to be wanted, as Tommy wants him.

He remembers a story his Ma would tell him and the others when he was small, about a man who stole a wife from the sea. It’s hazy in his memory, but he remembers the ending, how it was always the same – the wife could not stay on land, for she belonged to the sea, and always would leave her man and return to her true home.

 _Good_ , he remembers saying, five years old and certain of everything, _she was right to go back. You can’t take people away from their homes._

 _Ah,_ his Ma had said, or perhaps he only dreamed it, her hand on his forehead, soothing him to sleep, _Solly, you’re a good lad. You’ll make a fin_ _e_ _husband._

Now though, with Tommy in his arms, he feels he might understand the men from his mother’s tales better than he thought. Now he has him - and he took him from the sea, didn’t he, dragged him from the water and into this bed that’s theirs, now – he knows, drawing Tommy down to kiss him true and deep, that he’d do about anything, if it only meant he could keep him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sol’s ma leaned over and kissed his forehead, her hair brushing his cheek. “But the wife from the sea was unhappy, for the land never could be her home.”_
> 
> _“What happened, mama?” Hannah asked, clean and scrubbed in her white nightgown. “Did the man let her go?”_
> 
> _“Men never do, my love,” Ma sighed, and smiled a little. “But women have their ways, all the same, and you cannot keep a seal-woman from the sea. Now to bed with you, my poppets.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter of this, a bit later (and longer) than intended - enjoy!

Tommy’s got a bad ear, from an accident when he was younger, that much he’s told Sol. He reckons the knot of skin on his side must be from the same, but Tommy never mentions it. He’ll twitch sometimes when Sol touches it, but when he pulls his hand back Tommy will take hold of it in both of his, place it back against the scar.

“I don’t mind it,” he says, “don’t hurt none.”

It makes Sol fiercely glad, that Tommy trusts him enough to let him touch him so. He can’t recall the last time he felt a body so close to his own, felt so much license to touch and be touched. He came up here to forget, to be alone, and now he finds himself – well, he’s not quite sure, but he knows he likes it well enough.

“Sweet lad,” he says, kissing Tommy’s ribs, his stomach, the hard bump of the scar, just a bit darker than the rest of his skin. There’s a trail of dark hair leading down towards his cock, a neat, hot length that Sol loves to play with – sends him, the way it pinks up at the slightest touch. “So pretty, Tommy. Proper, like.”

“What’s that mean?” Tommy asks. “Proper?” It ought to surprise him, but he remembers Tommy didn’t know how to read when he first pitched up here, and he doubts even old John Bridgens could’ve had the lad sit still long enough to learn more than a few words.

“Ever so,” Sol strokes his hip.

Tommy makes a satisfied noise, content with that. “You’re pretty too,” he says, very seriously. Sol bites his hip, just gently.

“None of that, or you’ll not get what you want.”

“’M not making fun,” Tommy squirms to sit up. “You’re pretty, Sol. Pretty eyes, pretty hair.” Tommy strokes Sol’s hair, which is brown and ordinary and getting far too long, as if to demonstrate. “Pretty these when you smile,” he pokes a finger into Sol’s cheek, where a dimple appears, obligingly, a second later.

“Dimples?” Sol asks, a little hot with being so scrutinised, and Tommy pauses a second, then nods. Gets that look on his face he does sometimes, as though he’s hearing the word for the first time, tucking it away somewhere. Sol shakes the thought away, grabs Tommy’s arms to lay him flat on his back.

“Lovely,” Tommy says dreamily, when Sol returns to the business of kissing whichever bit of skin happens to be nearest, “you’re so lovely, my Sol…”

If it’s a strange thing for Tommy to say, well, he’s heard worse. He continues his way down, kisses round Tommy’s pretty prick, which is pulled up nearly to his stomach, dark head leaking.

“Lift up, c’mon, pet, gotta get you open for me,” he murmurs, because he’s wanted to and Tommy’s warm and sweet now, good for it. He grabs for one of the pillows and shoves it under the lad’s canted hips, though one of these days he’s going to see how long Tommy can hold himself up, thighs straining, while Sol gets him ready.

He’s got Tommy’s legs over his shoulders, tonguing hot at his sweet arsehole, a finger crooked in to pry him apart, and the lad’s making noises like Sol’s being ever so cruel to him, paying him such attention, and Tommy’s grabbing at his hair, and it’s all so good he’s grinding his own cock down against the mattress like a teenager, he feels as though he can hear the sea crashing in his ears as Tommy’s sweet strained sounds wind up – so of course that’s when someone decides to bang on the _fucking_ door.

It’s Peglar with the last of the day’s catch, which he brings up sometimes when the market’s looked it over and taken their share. Sol thanks him, a bit gruffly, half because of the still aching cock-stand pressing into his hastily pulled on trousers, and partially because Harry’s gotten into the habit of looking far too knowing lately.

“Alright, Tommy?” he calls out, and Tommy appears behind Sol to take the basket, properly dressed and only a little pink in the face, nodding and smiling at Harry like he wasn’t just letting Sol lick him open behind the bed-curtain, which strikes Sol as a bit unfair. Harry has the gall to look relieved, like he suspects Sol of keeping Tommy tied to the bed or some such.

Sol shuts the door behind Peglar as Tommy disappears into the pantry with the basket, where the fish will lie cool on the back shelf before dinner. Sol likes to watch Tommy busy over the stove, and he ain’t half bad at cooking, much better than Sol knows himself to be.

Bessie’s tight on his heels, and if Sol knows himself to be a fool for the dog, Tommy’s worse. Sure enough, out she comes with a glint of silver in her mouth – half a fish, look of things - and settles by the fire to devour her prize.

“Shouldn’t go spoiling her.” Sol says to the lad’s back, bent over the basket. Christ, his little arse will still be open from Sol’s hand and mouth, he could…

Tommy makes a _hmm_ noise, and then turns round, and Sol gets a brief glimpse of his jaw working before he puts a hand up and wipes at his mouth, throat working round something. Can’t think what – bread’s up on the other shelf, and the fish – well, it’s not _cooked_. Tommy knows he’s the run of the place, he makes their dinner most nights, surely he wouldn’t think he needs to...

“Here, what you playing at?” Sol asks.

Tommy swallows. “Just hungry,” he shrugs. Sol blinks at him. There’s hungry, and then there’s what Sol is sure he’d just done. A raw fish, of all things?

Mind you, Tommy’s a thin little thing. Sol remembers, back when new lads turned up at the barracks, how wide eyed they’d get at the steady meals, shovelling down bowls in the mess like they expected someone to snatch it off them. There’s something of that in Tommy, that hunger, and Sol feels a pang of guilt again for all things he never thought to ask, before.

“Funny lad,” Sol says gently, thumbing at the corner of Tommy’s mouth. “C’mon, yeah – lets get the tea on.”

~

The dream always comes back – makes no matter if he thinks he’s chased it away, how much he’s drank or how soundly he sleeps. He’s not had it since Tommy came, though.

“ _Cornelius,” he calls, feeling his throat fill with something uncomfortably like fear. “Cornelius, get me off this chain!”_

_Cornelius, at the top of the stairs with his back to Solomon, doesn’t say anything. Unusual for him, but Sol thinks – has to think – he’s figuring them a way out. Might have known it was fishy to begin with, a job this side of town, but they’d been hard up for weeks, and now here they are – fucking trapped and sitting ducks for whoever it is Cornelius has pissed off this time. Let alone the iron on Sol’s arm._

_The light filters down – it’s not real, not happening, long past, he knows this and still his heart feels fit to beat out of his chest. “Cornelius!”_

“ _Now then, darling.” Hickey’s voice, close again in his ear. Always had the knack for appearing out of nowhere. “Remember what you told me? Every man for himself.”_

“ _Don’t – wait -” The glass breaks, and the water rushes in._

_Cornelius’ impish face, washed in shadows, then that flash of broken light when he scrambled over Sol and kicked out of the window, glass shattering over that stupid fucking coat he wore that Sol could almost swear sometimes looked like a knife had ripped through it, though surely Cornelius would never let anyone close enough to try that on him._

_He’s cold, and the water keeps on rising._

_Crouching in the window, Hickey opens his knife. “There,” he says, and this time, because he hadn’t, really, he grasps Sol’s chin and turns his face upwards. “Always be a reckoning, Solomon darling.”_

The knife pierces his ribs, and Sol shocks awake, sweat and choking tongue, twisted up in the sheets. He leans into the flat of the pillow, trying to settle his breathing. Can’t go waking Tommy with this, his damned half-wrong memory, his _cowardice_.

Only, when he lifts his head, Tommy’s nowhere to be seen. His side of the mattress, nearest the wall because the kid’s always cold and that way Sol can hold onto him properly, lies empty next to Solomon, and when he pushes himself up on an arm, says Tommy’s name, all he hears is a low whine from next to him, down on the ground – Bessie shifting in her sleep.

Usually, he’d roll over and try to send himself back to sleep – sure enough Tommy’s gone out to the lav, and he’ll wake up to find the lad curled into his chest for all he’s worth. Tonight, though, with his nightmares still choking him, it don’t feel right. More than that, it feels as though something’s wrong.

Might be he’s gotten too used to having Tommy in his bed of a night, but either way, Sol’s never gotten anywhere from ignoring his instincts. He pushes the covers back and gropes for his breeches, then leans down under the bed. The shotgun barrel is cold under his hands, and he’ll need to check it before he heads out, but if something’s happened to Tommy, if Sol’s past has caught up with him and the lad comes to any harm, he’ll -

“Solomon?”

There’s the other side of instinct. He moves as fast as his current position will let him, rolling onto his back and cocking the gun, only for Tommy’s wild head to appear round the curtain.

“Christ, lad,” Sol groans, tossing the gun down onto the mattress. He’s jarred his shoulder fumbling for it under the bed, and he can’t help but grit his teeth as Tommy clambers up onto the bed. The lad’s curls are wet, his skin damp, and when he drops the fur he’s got wrapped over his shoulders, Sol can smell the sea on him. “You been out swimming?”

Tommy’s looking at the gun. Sol curses – he’s never wanted Tommy worried, is all, or he would’ve told him where it was kept, that he kept it at all. He reaches out and cups Tommy’s cheek, makes him look up.

“I didn’t mean for you to wake,” Tommy says softly. He sits back on his haunches, wet limbs pale in the slice of moonlight peeking into the cottage. Sol tuts and wraps the pelt back over him – one of these days he really will catch a chill.

“Had a bad dream.” Sol says – without meaning to, but it's what Tommy does to him, isn’t it, with his round bright eyes and mournful face, the promise of him, how he seems to understand Sol better than any living creature save Bessie, perhaps. “You shouldn’t be going out at night,” he adds, before Tommy can speak. “Could get yourself killed on them rocks.”

Tommy makes a small noise, and Sol feels cut to the quick. Tommy’s his own thing, he hadn’t meant it like that. He reaches and takes Tommy’s wrist in his.

“Hey – next time, wake me and I’ll come with you, aye?” Sol tells him, and Tommy laughs, which is rare enough in itself, that sharp little noise, squirming into Sol’s lap like a joyful pup. Sol catches him and lets Tommy wrestle them down to the mattress – it pulls his shoulder, but having Tommy near him? Worth the ache, he reckons.

“You’re a good sort of husband, Solomon Tozer,” Tommy says consideringly, once Sol has him clutched tight to his chest. “I’m lucky, I think.”

Sol groans, pleased in spite of himself, his mother's word’s washing over him, _you’ll make a fine husband, Solly._ “I’ll take that, lad,” he says, kissing Tommy’s hair. In spite of Tommy’s wet skin, ocean cold, he feels warm through.

“What did you dream?” Tommy asks, once Sol’s stirred to put the gun safe away. He stretches his shoulder – easy, it’d be, to say nothing. Claim he couldn’t remember, even, though Tommy’d likely know it was a lie, canny little thing that he is.

He’s damn tired of lying. He draws himself out from under the bed, sits next to Tommy, hip to hip.

 _Always be a reckoning._ Well, _fuck_ that.

“I’d another man,” he says, haltingly – afraid, he realises now, to see hurt or judgement on Tommy’s face – “Years ago, now. Ended bad. But he were from here – said he was – so I...I came. Stayed. Bloody glad I did, now, mind.” He looks at Tommy properly – the lad’s eyes are shining, but there’s something there that Sol knows well the name of, and it makes his heart feel fit to pound right out of his chest, and damn his shoulder.

Been a bloody while since he’s let himself think on how it went with Cornelius – the whole sorry length of it, not just bits and pieces. Tommy sighs slightly, his fingers playing patterns on Sol’s wrist, which he’s taken up in both hands.

“He hurt you,” Tommy says quietly. “Your man.”

Sol sighs. It’d be easy enough to say yes, to lay the blame at Hickey’s feet entire. Sol knows better than that, though. Flotsam and jetsam, that’s all the two of them ever were, haphazards flung together and just as easily parted. But Cornelius always would have his say, even now.

He pushes a hand through Tommy’s damp curls, just to make the kid scrunch his nose that way he does, and to take the sting out of his words. “I weren’t...I’m not a good bloke, Tommy lad. Things I’ve done...”

“It’s alright," Tommy tells him, so sweet and so serious Sol can’t help but heed him. For all the kid doesn’t know the half of it. “You’re here now. I’m here.” He looks so tenderly at Sol that all he wants to do is kiss the lad. Tommy beats him to it, though, rolling out of Sol’s grip and onto his knees.

From there he looks up at Sol, hands on the waist of his breeches, and Sol sucks in a breath for all the world as though it were his last. An otherworldly thing, his Tommy seems just then. “Get to it, then, lad,” he says, and when that warm mouth settles around him, he grips onto Tommy’s hair, listening, listening, to the howl of the wind coming in from the sea.

~

Tommy flops down on the sand next to Sol, and Bessie wriggles her way over from Tom Hartnell’s lap and lays her head on Tommy’s stomach. Sol, leaning up on his side, reaches to scratch the dog’s neck, wishing as he does he could move his hand lower, touch Tommy’s skin. In the firelight, he’s as bright as the midsummer sky, and Sol reckons he’s never seen anything so fine.

“Here, Tommy,” Hartnell’s brother, John, leans over to show Tommy something he’s been carving. Sol catches sight of fins and a tail before Tommy’s pale fingers close over the little figure. The lad turns it over, tracing the edges with one finger.

“She’ll float,” Tommy says, handing it back, and John laughs, shaking Tommy’s shoulder.

“Hope she’ll swim,” he says. “Reckon we could catch us a mermaid, Tom?”

“Up here in this cold water?” Tom Hartnell says ‒ serious type, that one. 

“Might be one as likes a bit of herring. Wait, Harry,” he calls across to Peglar, who’s sitting just far enough from John Bridgens for it to seem proper, and not an inch more. “Din’t you have a picture in your book of a mermaid?”

Next to Sol, Tommy flops back down, his dark curls falling onto the sand. Sol could paint him, if he’d any talent for it. He looks his fill instead, and almost misses Peglar fumbling for a little book from his pocket – not like it's an unusual sight.

“Not a mermaid. A seal wife,” he says, passing the book to Tom and John. Sol catches a glimpse of the page, and sees a drawing of a woman crouched along a rock, hair swirling in the wind. Still curled up on Tommy, Bessie whines, and the lad strokes a line along her back.

“What’s one of them, then?” Tom asks.

Harry goes a little red, nudging Bridgens. “You tell it better than me, John.”

Bridgens makes a shushing noise, but when the Hartnell boys start looking hangdog, he sighs and takes the book back, holds it open on his knee. He can spin a fair tale, can John Bridgens, no surprise with all his learning, and the lot of them quieten down to listen as the sky grows darker.

“Well, there’s all sorts of stories of the seal folk. _A man I am upon the land, and a selkie in the sea,_ one goes.Sad tales, many of them.”

“Why’s that, then, John?”

“The seal-folk aren’t meant to bide ashore, are they? I heard a fisherman’s story once, of a maid who dallied with a selkie man. She bore him a child, and the seal gave her a golden chain to know him by, when he came to claim their son. She let the child go, and wept bitter tears, but in time she wed another and was happy enough with him. But her new man was a gunner – a hunter – and one day, he brought home a golden chain for his wife, a prize he’d taken from two seals he’d slain on the rocks above their home. And there was nowt then that could stop the seal-widow’s weeping.”

“Do none of them end happy?” Tom asks, trailing his fingers through the sand. At Sol’s side, a little sigh seems to go through Tommy, and Sol wants to reach out for him, but Bridgens looks at Peglar for a moment, then speaks.

“I wouldn’t say happy, no. Most often, you hear of a landsman, or a fisherman maybe, coming upon a selkie woman’s pelt and taking it for his own.”

“A pelt?” Sol leans forwards, a strange feeling coming over him, like fingers trailing up the back of his neck.

“Aye, just so. The selkie, you see, will shed her pelt when she comes ashore, and a canny man might find the pelt, and lock it safe away. After that, the seal-woman would follow him home, and when she could not find her pelt, the man would keep her, and take her to wife. She’d live with him a time, and bear him children, but...”

_Sol’s Ma leaned over and kissed his forehead, her hair brushing his cheek. “But the wife from the sea was unhappy, for the land never could be her home.”_

“ _What happened, mama?” Hannah asked, clean and scrubbed in her white nightgown. “Did the man let her go?”_

“ _Men never do, my love,” Ma sighed, and smiled a little. “But women have their ways, all the same, and you cannot keep a seal-woman from the sea. Now to bed with you, my poppets.”_

Sol blinks. While Bridgens has been speaking, the light has gone, and in spite of the fire, he feels a dreadful chill.

“Tommy,” he says quietly, and the lad opens his wide blue eyes and looks at him, as startled as that seal he’d once seen on the beach. Just like. The chill dissipates, as though to let him know well, Sol, you’ve finally caught up. Tommy looks away, and Sol thanks his years in the marines for the fact he hasn’t let the dawning comprehension show on his face. 

“C’mon, lad. Getting cold.” He can feel Peglar watching him, and wonders if he knows, or suspected – surely he couldn’t. Or if he did, he kept a damn good lid on it.

Oh, but there’s no such thing as selkies, are there?

Tommy smiles slightly, the kind that’s just for Sol, tucked into his cheek, and oh it shouldn’t make him happy but it does, it always does, and he might’ve known it wasn’t for him to keep. His Tommy, with no family or name, nothing but the ocean breeze at his back. And Sol, blind to it all for need of him. 

They’re scarcely through the cottage door, shoving it closed against the sharpness of the night, when Sol can’t stand it a second longer. He grabs Tommy by the hips and steers him to the bed, almost tripping in his haste. Tommy’s mouth, like the sea pulling you under, so sweet you don’t feel it. His hands, cool and smooth, gripping Sol’s hair.

“Off, off, get it _off_ ,” Tommy is saying, shifting underneath him so that Sol can pull his shirt off, tug at his tender nipples and make him twitch like a fish on a line. _Christ_. He kisses him, a knock of mouths, yanks his breeches down and plunges a spit-wet finger into the dusky tightness of his arsehole. He must be tender, Sol had him only this morning, but the lad mewls like a harbour cat, thighs splayed open. 

“What are you like, eh?” he murmurs, when Tommy leans back on his elbows, pressing his arse keenly against Sol’s driving hand. “You ready for it?”

“Solomon,” Tommy murmurs, “I want -”

“I know, pet, I know,” Sol says, running a soothing hand down Tommy’s flank. “I’ve got you.”

Usually, he’d draw it out more, listen to Tommy shift and beg, get him nice and open for Sol’s cock, because he takes it so sweetly, panting mouth and bare, vulnerable neck, and Sol would never want to hurt him. He doesn’t now, no matter what Tommy is, where he came from, only his blood is running hot and if he doesn’t have him this second, he’ll well and truly lose his mind.

He pulls the lad forward, sheaths himself inside of Tommy, _home_. Tommy makes a little whining sound, blossoming into a choked off cry when Sol starts in on him. He’s gripping the edge of the sheet, head hanging back over the edge of the mattress, and Sol can’t let up, won’t, even for a moment.

“That’s it, lad. Give it to me.” He blankets Tommy with his whole weight, tries to press into him deep enough that the lad might know him, for all Sol must seem a strange thing to him, cruel as he’s been without meaning to. “Christ, lovely little fuck you are, my Tommy.”

It’s over far too quickly, and still Sol holds Tommy to him, feels his racing breath damp against the sheets. Sol rolls to his side, lifts Tommy with him to tuck him into his front, heedless of the mess he’s just made of the boy’s arse. Tommy doesn’t protest. His cool fingers skate over Sol’s chest and he sighs, burrowing closer, as though he was meant to be just here.

How can he, though? Sol knows he’s done his share of the bad, but Tommy? He’d known he’d scarcely any right to him, but he’d let himself believe it, and now – now he has to give him up.

It would be so easy not to. The pelt lies at the bottom of the bed, the rich grey-copper shade of it visible even in the dark. A heavy thing, and warm, so warm. No wonder Tommy’s always cold. Sol pulls the lad closer, maps a hand across the red marks he’d left on Tommy’s hips, his back. In the morning, they’ll darken to bruises, and Sol will have made his choice. For now, he has Tommy in his arms, and he won’t let him go.

Not yet.

_That’s the thing, Solomon darling, isn’t it? There’ll always be a reckoning, for what you take._

~

He half expects Tommy to be gone when he wakes, swallowed up like a phantom. Instead, he’s puttering about over the stove, same as always, breeches tugged on loosely and his thin bare chest a motley of love-marks. He looks well fucked. Happy. 

Sol thinks his heart might break.

Best to get it finished. He can’t be a true husband to Tommy, not anymore, not now he knows what he’s done. Wordlessly, he lifts the pelt from the bed, and takes Tommy’s arm. “C’mon, lad,” he says, just as he had last night, and just as last night, Tommy follows him, out of the door and down the beach. Like the seal woman to the sea. 

When they get to the shore, and Sol lets him go, Tommy looks at him. “What’s the matter, Sol? I can tell there’s something, and –”

“Tommy,” Sol breathes. “I gotta make this right.” He takes Tommy’s wrist, and pulls him to the edge of the water. 

“Solomon, what are you -” Tommy makes a panicked noise as Sol thrusts the pelt into his hands, and Christ, he must be so frightened. What has Sol _done?_

“Go,” Sol tells him. “I won’t hold you, I swear. I didn’t – you can go back. I’m sorry, Tommy.”

“Sorry for what?” Tommy asks. He’s holding the fur, the _pelt, his pelt_ , in both hands, but he’s blinking up at Sol in the dawn light.

“I wish you’d told me, Tommy,” Sol says. He wants to turn away, doesn’t know if he can stand to see Tommy leave, though it’d be what he deserves. He takes hold of Tommy’s arms, moves him back into the shallows, the waves rushing up already to take him. “You’re _free_ , you understand me?”

Tommy’s brow crumples. “You don’t…”

“Shh,” Sol tells him. “You don’t need to worry. I’ll make sure you’re safe. You can rely on me for that, at least.”

Add it to the list of things he shouldn’t, but does anyhow – he leans and kisses Tommy’s forehead, the cool salt of his skin, and breaks away when he hears Tommy’s breath hitch. He can’t stand it all of a sudden, and he pushes Tommy back. Knows the waves will be there to catch him.

“Sol!” He hears Tommy call when he turns his back, and whatever the lad feels he owes him, Sol will just have to make sure he knows that the debt has long been paid. He starts walking, heavier than he’s ever felt.

The cottage will be warm when he gets inside. Tommy’s lit the fire. He thinks there’s something in the cooker too, and his chest shouldn’t feel so empty, surely, because this is the right thing, the only thing he can do to fix what he’s done, and -

“Solomon Tozer, you get _back_ here this fucking instant!”

It’s shock that makes him turn round, because he can’t remember ever hearing Tommy swear before, certainly not like that. He doesn’t go back all the way, but close enough that he can see Tommy, waist deep in the water, his pelt curled round his back – a living thing, how could Sol not have _seen_ it – and Christ, his eyes are wet.

“Tommy,” he says, pleading. “I can’t -”

Tommy rises out the water, before a wave knocks him back again. “You don’t want me, then? You’ll take me to your hearth and your bed, keep my pelt and use me like your wife, and then you’ll throw me away?” Tommy says, quiet and plaintive. “What have I done wrong that you’ll treat me so?”

“No -” Sol can’t help himself, any more than he could when he saw Tommy fall from the rocks. He strides waist deep into the water, lifts Tommy up. “You’ve done nowt, lad. It’s me what’s done wrong, and I’m sorry for it. I took you – and I’d no right. I know that now. But you can go home now, aye?”

Tommy swallows – Sol can feel the bob of his throat, and surely it says something that he’s even made a mess of this. “You mean it?”

“Yes,” Sol says, squeezes Tommy’s hand. The waves knock against his legs, the sea angry, wanting him gone. “Go home, love.”

Tommy sighs. “Alright.” He pulls away from Sol, and Sol closes his eyes – just briefly, he’ll watch if he has to, hurt though it might, he’ll see Tommy leave, know him safe where he belongs.

Only Tommy doesn’t turn his back. He wades past Sol, shoulder knocking into his, and leaves the sea altogether, starts trudging up the beach towards the cottage, still carrying his waterlogged pelt.

“Tommy, what are you playing at?” Sol hurries after him, catches him before he can go in the door. “I meant what I said. I know, y’see, I know what you are. And I – you’re _free_.”

“Am I?” Tommy asks. “I – I’ve a pie in the oven, Sol.”

“Tommy -”

“No,” Tommy says, shaking his head. “It’s fine. If I – if I’ve forced myself on you, if you don’t want me any more now you know, then I should -”

“I want you,” Sol says, because there’s nowt else he _can_ say, it’s truer than the breath in his lungs. What he feels for Tommy, he can’t put it to words, because they’re simply not enough, for what the lad has given him, for what he is, so far beyond Sol’s reach as he should be.

“Then _why_?” Tommy looks up at him, as helpless, it seems, as Sol feels. Sol reaches out, touches the pelt where it hangs down, heavy with seawater, between them.

“I won’t be like them, Tommy,” Sol starts, “those men in the stories, in Peglar’s book. I’ve no right to keep you, I know that now, but I swear when I found it I didn’t – I just thought – Christ, lad, you’ll be the end of me.”

Tommy looks at him, makes a spluttering noise, and it’s so human, so _Tommy_ , that Sol can’t help but smile. “I thought – Sol, I thought you _knew_.”

“Know?” he splutters, “Tommy, how the _fuck_ would I...oh, don’t do that, don’t, pet…” He twists his hand into Tommy’s wet sleeve, because his eyes are wide and blue and unbearably soft, and it still feels as though it’s all for Sol, though it shouldn’t be. Should it?

“You’re a fool, Solomon Tozer,” Tommy says, and then Sol, for all he’s sure he is one, is in his arms. Tommy holds him tightly, as though Sol’s the one in danger of disappearing, and Sol can’t help but relax into his grip, the lean strength of him. “You think I’d leave you? Or that I’d stay, if I didn’t...didn’t _love_ you?”

“You -”

“Yes. Now the pie’s burning.” Tommy breaks their clinch and stalks past him, leaving Sol standing there, the pelt all in a heap on the sand. Sol bends and picks it up, because it seems as though Tommy thinks he’s worthy to touch it – and well, who is he to say no? At the door, Bessie gives him a steady look, her black eyes glinting, before she trots off towards the dunes, tail batting low. 

“I never meant to trap you, Tommy,” he says. “When I took it, I didn’t-”

“I wanted it to be you.” Tommy says – says it so simply and honestly that Sol can’t do anything but believe it. “When I realised my skin was missing, I know it’s stupid but – I prayed and prayed it was you that had it. And then when you did...when you handed it back like that? I thought I’d never been happier, not one time in all the world.”

“Tommy, lad – no,” Sol pulls Tommy back to him, because oh, he’s been a damn fool, hasn’t he, in more ways than one? “You’re the best damn thing I’ve ever laid hands on – and as fine a man as any I’ve known. You’re a prize, lad. Damn near kills me, thinking of having to toss you back. Only – you’re willing? Truly?”

“Sol,” Tommy says, his eyes bright. “You doubt me? You mustn’t. You...you never _kept_ it from me. You’re _good_ , a good man, whatever you say of yourself.”

“Watch it, kid,” Sol says gruffly, “might start believing you.” He feels something opening in his chest, some sense of light he can’t quite bring himself to chase away – and it seems, maybe, he doesn’t have to after all.

“So you...you don’t want me to go, then?” Tommy says, very careful, like Sol’s some big beast he’s afraid of spooking – only he’s looking at him soft, still, and so much love in his blue eyes, Sol could swear he’d spend the rest of his days trying to be equal to it.

“Course I don’t. You’re mine, ain’t you?” He lifts the pelt from where he left it, hands it back to Tommy. The lad takes it, and this time there’s no hesitation. “I’ve no ring to give you, but I'm yours if you’ll have me, Tommy.”

“Truly?” Tommy asks. “Even though I’m…”

“Aye,” Sol tells him, and takes his boy in his arms, feeling the strange wings of his bones. A wondrous, precious thing, washed up by the sea. He may have taken him without knowing, but his eyes are well and open now. He's not a good man, perhaps never will be, but he’s been given Tommy to keep him safe, to hold him fast and love him true, and he will, he swears it now, to whoever might be minded to listen. “That alright by you?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me sitting down to write this: they're GOING to be happy, dammit!
> 
> the stories bridgens tells are adapted from [this website on selkie lore](http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/selkiefolk/index.html)
> 
> a moodboard for this fic can be found [here](https://regularmongoose.tumblr.com/post/645030449077485568/moodboard-for-a-gunner-good-a-terror-selkie-au) if you are so inclined.

**Author's Note:**

> one day i will write some soltommy fic without a fur motif, but it is not this day.  
> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/itgottheleg) and [tumblr](https://regularmongoose.tumblr.com/).  
> 


End file.
